Forget Him
by DarkestWolfx
Summary: None of them wanted to forget, and maybe that was why IR kept living. Because they could do the impossible. Even if it meant forgetting the possible. Spoilers for 'Life Signs' (S3E6) [05/05/18].


Hello, from the person who's been away again. Travelling around Europe was good fun, but I'm glad to be back. I've spent the past week catching up on life - including series three, and thus here I am! I've missed writing for you all - and missed all of you too.

So, interesting for me, I was motivated to write something from Virgil's point of view after this week. And I think there will definitely be a bigger piece to follow this, also based on some of Alan and Virgil's conversation.

Expect frequent updates again, because trust me, I was able to get a lot of chapters for a new TAG story idea written whilst travelling for hours - I just couldn't post any them without Internet. Oh, the joys of being home.

Enjoy!

* * *

 _"What was he like?"_

 _"Dad? You know."_

 _"I don't, actually. I- I hate to admit it, but I'm starting to forget him. Not the big stuff, but the little details. The things that matter. Can you tell me some?"_

* * *

He wasn't sure where Alan's sudden mournful, nostalgic attitude arose from. It wasn't unappreciated either, it was just strange for the moment. Unexpected. It surprised him, that's what it did. One-minute Alan's complimenting his co-piloting skills, and then the next… Well, it was just a sudden shift he couldn't comprehend.

Or, on recollection, maybe it wasn't so hard to do so.

It actually made a lot of sense.

And he'd been the one to bring it up. To bring up something that Alan couldn't possibly remember, only to find that there were some things the younger really was struggling to remember. He didn't see how at first. How could you forget things like that, but…

He supposed... Well, they didn't talk about Dad all that much.

Well, they did, but the bigger things – International Rescue, and legacy - not the little things.

The little things you just assume will always be remembered: so you don't talk about them, because there doesn't seem to be a need. But then, you forget them. Of course, that was the logical progression of the human mind. Long term memory; even that didn't last forever.

He'd never once thought it would be possible to forget them, but then Alan had been younger, he hadn't had the chance to know Dad like they did.

And they talked about what Dad would do, not who _Dad_ was... Maybe they needed to do more of that. Evenings of recollecting, of retelling memories. The way they used to – the way they did for Mum. Because the dead shouldn't become unspoken of. They should be remembered.

Going to Mars, to see Captain Taylor... Well that probably didn't help matters either.

* * *

 _"Virgil, do you ever like worry about what happened to Dad happening to you?"_

 _"Not during missions, but when we're home, yeah, I get scared."_

* * *

He wasn't a worrier.

Not unless it came to family.

Not even the impossible could worry him sometimes.

And well, he'd never really thought about being scared in the field, he just kept a level head, focussed on who they had to save and it was all fine. But, he hadn't been lying when he said he feared for his life at home. Dad had left, on a routine trip, and never come back. Tracy Island was meant to be safe, meant to be home, but he was more terrified there than he was in Thunderbird Two. And that there was an honest truth.

There was no adrenaline, no one else to be focussing on and putting first. His company was his brothers, and honestly, sometimes he become scared for them too.

So he passed the time with chess, and constant work on his ship (or if there wasn't any work, constant cleaning). With his brothers and helping Brains if he really ran out of things to do. He just tried to be occupied, because it helped alleviate the fear, at least for a little while, until a call might come in: until he could feel invincible and superhuman and successful.

Because IR made them something bigger than human.

He knew they all had their ways to cope, but speaking about Dad had slipped from that once religious schedule to make time for the man who couldn't be gone.

Ever though, he was becoming the man who was gone.

* * *

 _"But that's the job; it's the life we choose. Because, when you send out an SOS, you deserve to know somebody's out there, listening."_

* * *

International Rescue was almost more than a job.

It was their way of life. It was them.

It had been a piece of them for so long that it could sum up the Tracy family really. It was a label you could pin on them which was irremovable.

He didn't want it to be removable.

And if you kept putting the choice to him, he'd choose International Rescue, his life, his family, _every single time._ It was his life.

And it was right, because people needed to know they could rely on someone out there; to know that there was someone who could do the impossible. However maybe doing so much of the impossible flipped everything on its head – making the possible appear like the impossible task and maybe that was why…

In doing the _impossible_ , they forgot the _possible_.

They became superhuman, for those mere moments, and then they were but mortal again. That was the Island – for all its grandeur, it was their mortal state. That was what scared him, that was why he stuck around with Thunderbird Two, because she was the superhuman part of the equation.

They did so much for others, they forgot what they needed to do for themselves.

And what they needed… Sometimes that was hard to tell, but maybe they needed to make more time - Alan was right - and talk about the little things, keep them alive. For all of them.

Because Jeff Tracy lived in them.

In IR.


End file.
